Examines the life of the legendary baseball player, who was the first African-American to pitch in a Major League World Series. - (Baker & Taylor)
Having been a star pitcher in the Negro major leagues, Leroy "Satchel" Paige endured great hardships to become the first African American to pitch in the World Series who then later became the first African American inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. - (Baker & Taylor)
<b>Play ball with Satchel Paige with this nonfiction picture book biography from two Coretta Scott King Award–winning creators.</b><br><br>No one pitched like Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Fans packed the stands to see how many batters he could strike out in one game. He dazzled them with his unique pitching style, and he even gave nicknames to some of his trademark pitches—there was the “hesitation,” his magic slow ball, and the “bee ball,” named because it would always “be” where he wanted it to be.<br> <br>Follow Satch’​s career through these beautiful illustrations as he begins playing in the semi-pros and goes on to become the first African American to pitch in a major League World Series, and the first Negro Leaguer to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. - (Simon and Schuster)
Play ball with Satchel Paige with this nonfiction picture book biography from two Coretta Scott King Award'winning creators.
No one pitched like Leroy 'satchel' Paige. Fans packed the stands to see how many batters he could strike out in one game. He dazzled them with his unique pitching style, and he even gave nicknames to some of his trademark pitches'there was the 'hesitation," his magic slow ball, and the 'bee ball," named because it would always 'be' where he wanted it to be.
Follow Satch''s career through these beautiful illustrations as he begins playing in the semi-pros and goes on to become the first African American to pitch in a major League World Series, and the first Negro Leaguer to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. - (Simon and Schuster)
Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of many award-winning and critically acclaimed nonfiction books for young readers, including Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams; My Story, My Dance: Robert Battle's Journey to Alvin Ailey; and Before She Was Harriet. She is also the author of the novel Finding Langston, which received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award and five starred reviews. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Learn more at LesaClineRansome.com
James E. Ransome's highly acclaimed illustrations for The Bell Rang, which he also authored, received the 2020 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. His other award-winning titles include the Coretta Scott King winner The Creation; Coretta Scott King Honor Book Uncle Jed's Barbershop; Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt; Before She Was Harriet, and Let My People Go, winner of the NAACP Image Award. He frequently collaborates with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome. One of their recent titles is Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams, which received four starred reviews and was an ALA Notable Children's Book. He lives in New York's Hudson River Valley region with his family. Visit James at JamesRansome.com. - (Simon and Schuster)
Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of numerous nonfiction and historical fiction titles for picture book, chapter book, middle grade, and young adult readers including Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne. Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and received a Jane Addams Children’s Book Honor, Christopher Award, and Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration. Her debut middle grade novel, Finding Langston, won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband and frequent collaborator, James Ransome, and their family. Visit her at LesaClineRansome.com.
James E. Ransome’s highly acclaimed illustrations for Before She Was Harriet received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. His other award-winning titles include the Coretta Scott King winner The Creation; Coretta Scott King Honor Book Uncle Jed’s Barbershop; Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt; and Let My People Go, winner of the NAACP Image Award. James is also a recipient of the ALA Children’s Literature Legacy Award. He frequently collaborates with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome, and their books include Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis. James is a professor and coordinator of the MFA Illustration Graduate Program at Syracuse University. He lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley region with his family. Visit James at JamesRansome.com. - (Simon and Schuster)
Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Gr. 2^-4. The Satchel Paige story remains one of baseball's most resonant: the king of the Negro Leagues, Satchel pitched longer, threw harder, and struck out more batters than anyone in any league, black or white. His status as a mythic hero was only enhanced by his swagger, his Ali-like banter ("I'm gonna throw a pea at your knee"), and his imposing stature on the mound ("His foot looked to be about a mile long, and when he shot it into the air, it seemed to block out the sun"). Cline-Ransome plays up the mythic elements of the Paige story in her rollicking narrative, while Ransome's paintings jump off the page with bright colors and startling contrasts. His portraits of Paige, standing tall on the mound or finishing off another strikeout, capture the man's larger-than-life presence with great immediacy, the perfect complement to his wife's text. A Coretta Scott King Award winner for The Creation (1994), Ransome is equally at home with popular culture. Satchel Paige is a wonderful folk hero, triumphant but never pious, and this delightful picture book for older readers does a fine job of keeping his story alive for a new generation of young people. ((Reviewed December 15, 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
Horn Book Guide Reviews
This picture-book biography captures the immensely talented and individualistic Leroy ""Satchel"" Paige to the life, seeming--thanks to conversational prose and spectacle-filled pictures--barely able to contain the force of his gift and personality. Cline-Ransome, for all her leisurely down-home style and sheer comfort in storytelling, nonetheless packs the text with valuable information about both Paige and the world of baseball. Copyright 2000 Horn Book Guide Reviews
Horn Book Magazine Reviews
Legendary pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige spent more than twenty years wowing them in the Negro Leagues before finally being drafted, in 1948, as the first black pitcher in major league baseball. This picture-book biography captures the immensely talented and individualistic Satchel Paige to the life, seeming-thanks to Lesa Cline-Ransome's conversational prose and James Ransome's spectacle-filled pictures-barely able to contain the force of Paige's gift and personality. Cline-Ransome, for all her leisurely down-home style and sheer comfort in storytelling, nonetheless packs the text with valuable information about both Paige and the world of baseball. She includes plenty of baseball lore (such as Paige's legendary match-up with hitter Josh Gibson in the 1942 Negro World Series) and peppers the narrative with memorable Satchel sayings (the supremely confident Satchel to his outfield: "Why don't you all have a seat. Won't be needing you on this one"). Unlike Satchel's fastball, the text wobbles a little here and there, with some awkward or unclear sentences and passages, but readers will easily shake that off in the overall enjoyment of watching Satchel Paige show his stuff. m.v.p. Copyright 2000 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
Few characters in sports have so vivid or memorable a personality as Satchel Paige, even in the era of Michael Jordan; Cline-Ransome's storytelling captures that personality with the rhythms of a folktale, while her husband's oil paintings are strong and sure. Paige was a natural-born pitcher, expert from a very early age. This well-written biography begins with his childhood, where his job of carrying luggage for passengers at the Mobile, Alabama train station earned him his nickname. He learned baseball in ``reform school,'' where he was sent after getting caught stealing, and was a star in the Negro Leagues with greats such as Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson. He was over 40 when he finally got his chance in the majors, but was the first African-American to pitch in a World Series. The green and gold of the field, the long, tall image of Satchel in his uniform against a deep blue sky, and the bodies of baseball players coiled or unleashed make a fine counterpoint to the lyrical telling. (Picture book/biography. 6-10) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly Reviews
This first collaboration between a husband-and-wife team offers an informal, anecdotal profile of Leroy "Satchel" Paige, one of the all-time great baseball players of the Negro League, the first black pitcher to play in the major leagues and the first black inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The author's style is conversational and flavorful: after explaining that Paige, the seventh of 12 children, earned money for his family by toting travelers' luggage at the train depot, she writes, "When dimes weren't enough, Leroy took to stealing. And when he could no longer run fast enough, it was stealing that caught him." Sent to reform school at age 12, Paige joined its baseball team and was thrilled to encounter "real leather balls (not the ones your mama made with a rock and a rag) and real wooden bats, too." Kids will enjoy her occasional hyperbole: "[When he stood on the mound], his foot looked to be about a mile long, and when he shot [the ball] into the air, it seemed to block out the sun. Satch's arm seemed to stretch on forever, winding, bending, twisting." Ransome's (Let My People Go) tightly edited, boldly hued oil paintings capture the on-field prowess as well as the personality of the quick-witted, feisty Paige. More sculptural than kinetic, they express the qualities of a man who often seemed larger than life. This vivid book is a fitting tribute to a baseball hero. Ages 6-10. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
PW called this informal, anecdotal profile of the first black pitcher to play in the major leagues and the first black inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame "a fitting tribute to a baseball hero." Ages 6-10. (Jan.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
School Library Journal Reviews
Gr 2-4-"Some say Leroy Paige was born six feet three and a half inches tall, 180 pounds, wearing a size fourteen shoe. Not a bit of truth to it." So begins this unaffected biography of the first African-American pitcher to play major league baseball and the first black Baseball Hall of Fame inductee. Written with a storyteller's sense of rhythm and pacing, Paige's history will be best appreciated as a read-aloud. For example, describing life on the road, "From the first breath of spring till the cool rush of fall he would ride. Sometimes he joined his teammates on rickety old buses, bumping along on back roads studded with potholes so deep, players would have to hold on to their seats (and stomachs) just to keep from spilling into the aisles." Paige's frustration and anger with the limitations imposed on black players are mentioned, but emphasis is placed on his talents, popularity, and success. Ransome's rich oil illustrations establish a sense of time and place, reflecting the determination and excitement the man brought to the game. An obvious choice as a biography for younger readers and definitely of interest to baseball fans of all ages, this book is a worthy addition for any collection.-Alicia Eames, New York City Public Schools Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
